1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor chip and a semiconductor device, and a method of manufacturing the same, and more specifically, to a technique of assigning management information to a semiconductor chip in a manufacturing process for analysis in case of breakdown or failure.
2. Description of Related Art
A typical manufacturing method of a semiconductor chip using the technique of assigning the management information as above is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-228341 (Shioashi et al.).
In this manufacturing method, a semiconductor chip 1 shown in FIG. 2A that is regularly formed in an X coordinate axis direction and a Y coordinate axis direction is separated by cutting (dicing) a wafer 30. The X coordinate axis is set in a direction that is parallel with an orientation flat 30a (one of crystal axis direction in the surface of the wafer 30) shown in FIG. 2A, and the Y coordinate axis is set in a direction that is vertical to the orientation flat 30a. 
Further, the semiconductor chip 1 includes, as shown in FIG. 2B, a plurality of bonding pads (hereinafter simply referred to as pads) 11, various circuit elements (not shown), and a data region 12 arranged in a circuit forming region 10 provided on the surface thereof. The management information is written in the data region 12.
More specifically, as shown in FIG. 2C, for example, numerals “1” to “10 (shown as “0” in FIG. 2C)” or alphabets “A” to “J” are made correspondent to the vertical direction of the data region 12, and information composed of a lot number=“A00001” in the manufacturing process, a wafer number=“2”, and coordinates in the wafer (values on the X and Y coordinate axes as described above) is encoded to be written as the management information.
The management information written to the surface of the semiconductor chip 1 can be read out in case of breakdown or failure, so as to employ the information to analyze the cause of the breakdown or the failure. Shioashi et al. also discloses a method of providing the data region 12 in the rear surface of the semiconductor chip 1 for the sake of writing as much management information as possible (recording the management information without being limited by the size of the empty space of the circuit forming region 10 or the capacity of the data region 12).